I intentionally delayed posting this until today to ensure my 2005 numbers were really, really accurate. As it turns out, I was brilliantly prescient, because in the last 31 days since the mainstream media produced its cluster of End of Hurricane Season stories, nature proved once again that artificial deadlines really are artificial. We have had two named storms this December, and the last one is still hanging on in the far eastern Atlantic.

In 154 years of record-keeping, this year had the most named storms (27), the most hurricanes (15), the highest number of major hurricanes hitting the U.S. (4), and the most Category 5 hurricanes (3)

Katrina was the deadliest U.S. hurricane since 1928 -- more than 1,300 known dead

Katrina replaced 1992's Andrew as the most expensive hurricane on record -- $34.4 billion in known insured losses

Total insured losses from hurricanes in 2005 are estimated at $47.2 billion, above the previous record of $22.9 billion set in 2004 when four hurricanes also hit the U.S.

Wilma was briefly the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record in terms of minimum central pressure (882 millibars)

Wilma was also the fastest-strengthening storm on record -- its top sustained winds increased 105 mph in 24 hours in the Caribbean

Forecasters exhausted their list of 21 proper names (Arlene, Bret, Cindy and on through Wilma) and had to use the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and Zeta) to name storms for the first time

Disclaimer: These numbers are subject to change as we find more dead people and more insurance claims are processed.

Update: Added another hurricane since Cindy was reclassified from a Tropical Storm.

Has your name been retired? Here are the ones that will no longer be used.